Torkha

A short story inspired by a one word prompt from the Imaginarium House.

Submitted: July 10, 2017

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Submitted: July 10, 2017

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Torkha!

I had been a fan of Torkha since they had formed six years ago. Five lads, four of which were a
couple of years above me in school, got together and made a band. Metal, I guess you’d call their music, but not the really heavy stuff. Anyway, I’d been following them since they started, before
they suddenly made it big, and when I heard there was gonna be a free gig, well, I was going!

No publicity, just word of mouth, that is what it was supposed to be. I don’t reckon there’s any
such thing now. Someone says something, posts it online, and social media spreads the news like wild-fire.

5am, I was there. I’d been thinking that would be plenty early enough but it looked as though I
was wrong. There were people sitting on the ground, leaning against walls, just standing there. Some had sleeping bags, some jackets, and others seemed to have braved the early hours in nothing
thicker than a t-shirt. Either way, there were a lot of people already waiting in front of me. And there was an entire 9 hours to go before the concert started.

They’d open the doors an hour earlier, I figured, but there was a lot of time to kill before
then. I’d got my phone in my pocket but the battery wouldn’t last that long. I was going to have to ration it out, spend my time people watching or something, maybe chatting to some of the other
fans.

I’d no idea how many there were in front of me but I knew more and more were arriving throughout
the morning, meeting up with mates and invariably jumping the queue. It was only going to be a small gig, an intimate performance, 500 seats so far as I’d heard. Can you imagine how hard it was to
keep my complaints silenced?

Oh boy, that morning dragged, seemed to last forever. For a while I thought it was going to
rain, and later wished it had. The temperature rose steadily and by midday the sweat was streaming off my face, soaking through my clothes. There was no shade to be found unless I left my place in
the queue, and I was not going to do that, not after all this time.

And then I heard the doors open, or maybe I heard the collective sigh of relief that rose up all
around me. We were finally on the move! Only slowly, but I was making my way forward towards the entrance. Only a handful in front of me now, come on.....

And then the door shut. They were checking, they said, to see how many seats, if any, were left.
Stay calm, stay patient. They would soon let us know. The minutes ticked by and then the door opened once more. There were five of them now; big burly guys, looking as though they might be
expecting trouble and would not hesitate to deal with it if there was. Five seats left, that was all. And how many in front of me? Seven!

The doors closed, and three of the guys stood outside them, forming a barricade between us and
the entrance. Would they re-open? I’d bide my time, wait for a while......just in case.

And then they put the sign up -- ‘Full’. It was over, my chance to go and see the band I
loved.

I won’t deny that I felt like kicking something, like lashing out. All those hours spent waiting
-- for nothing. But it wouldn’t have changed anything; there’d have still been no seats. Some of the unlucky ones were heading round the back, trying to find another way in. Well, good luck to
them.

Me, I’m going home. I’m going to stick on the music, watch a video, and maybe pretend that I’m
really there. Who knows, maybe I’ll manage to convince myself too, at least for a short while.

Ha-ha. I see that you wisely left revealing the word prompt till the end. I felt the protagonist's anxiety and frustration. I prefer to listen to my favourite music in the comfort of my home. Much less hassle. But maybe that's just my age showing. ~ Joe

AuthorReply

Comment | 30 words

Mon, July 10th, 2017 2:44pm

No, I'm with you. And who was it that gave me the idea of holding those prompts back until the end? A very good friend called Joe Stuat! Thanks, Joe!